You would think that the Nazi conquest of Europe would have no defenders almost 65 years after the end of World War Two. Amazingly enough, there are those who recall the Nazi occupation of their homeland with a fondness that they have passed to their descendants.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Croatian Cultural Movement (HUP) has erected a monument to Ante Pavelic, the dictator of the puppet state of Croatia that was set up between 1941 and 1945 by the Germans.This development outrages many Serbs, Jews and dissident Croats whose relatives suffered persecution under the Pavelic regime.
The Jerusalem Post reports as follows.
"Croatian extreme right-wing NGO The Croatian Cultural Movement (HUP) has announced plans to erect a monument in honor of former Croatian president Ante Pavelic in Zagreb, Croatia, this December.
HUP president Tomislav Dragun has been quoted as saying that the monument will stand adjacent to the capital's central square.
Pavelic, the president of Croatia during World War II, was known for his state-organized terror campaign against Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. He was installed as the president of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in 1941, a puppet state of the Nazi regime which included Bosnia and part of Dalmatia. "
There is a a small but vocal minority that looks with fondness at the Nazi puppet republic that existed from 1941-1945. It should be noted that Nazi Germany conquered Europe not only with the force of arms but with cunning and a knowledge of local rivalries. From the Bretons in France to the Ukrainians of the USSR, there is a laundry list of local ethnic minorities and nationalities who aspired to national independence. Croatia has aspired to independence from it s neighbour, Serbia, which has tended to function as a regional superpower. Despite the similarity of their languages, there is much bitterness between Serbia and Croatia, which was skillfully exploited by the Nazis when they granted "independence" to Croatia in 1941. The Croats provided enthusiastic collaborators who set up a local concentration camp, Jasenovac , in which Jews, Serbs, Romany and other enemies of the regime were tortured and murdered. Even the Germans were shocked at the gleeful sadism of their Croat underlings. It is estimated that 700,000 men, women and children were murdered by the Pavelic regime. For a small country like Croatia which today has 4.5 million people, this is a very large figure. Nazi Croatia during the war included what is today known as Bosnia, which has a population a bit larger than that of Croatia.
In fairness it should be noted that just as many Croats today are descended from Nazi collaborators, so too are many descended from those who opposed the Pavelic regime. Perhaps even more numerous are those who "went with the flow" and harboured no strong sympathies of any sort. It is not to hard to imagine that today's political rivalries have a history that goes back to the second World War and beyond.
There are still Serbs and Jews living in Croatia today. Although Jews have fared quite well, the same can't be said for Croatia's Serbian minority, which endured ethnic cleansing of the sort practiced by Serbia against Croats and Muslims in Bosnia. Honouring the memory of Ante Pavelic, a Nazi war criminal and collaborator is not a gesture of faith in Croatia's future as a constitutional republic in which the rights of national minorities are respected.
There are democracies such as the US in which Nazis have freedom of assembly. It is equally true that zoning laws and other ordinances can be used in democratic countries to restrict the construction of monuments such as the planned monument to Ante Pavelic.
There are varied political strains in Croatian society. I hope that Ante Pavelic is relegated to the sad and bloody past in Croatian history and that his memory does not become an eerie light in the future of that small country. There were Croats who fought and died for values that would be recognised and lauded by decent folk everywhere. It is they who deserve recognition and not Ante Pavelic.
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On a happier note, I am happy to include a link to the downloadable memoirs of Blagoje Jovovic, who shot and seriously injured Ante Pavelic in Buenos Aires Argentina in 1957, shortening but not immediately ending the miserable life of that putrid creature. The site has other articles as well on the Ustasha, which was the movement of Croatia's Nazi collaborators.
pavelicpapers.com and the link to "Two Bullets for Pavelic"
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